Child Poverty

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Child Poverty

• Tackling Child Poverty is a national and local
  priority
• The Government has a long-term goal to eradicate
  child poverty by 2020 and to halve it by 2010

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• Low income, whilst important is just one of the
  contributing factors
• Mental and physical health problems
• Worklessness
• Lack of childcare
• Low skills
• Lack of family support
• Child protection issues
• Problems with benefit entitlement
• Debt
• Poor Housing

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• Families living in poverty are often in contact
  with multiple agencies.
• 80 of public service resources in Cornwall are
  spent on 20 of people and families most in
  crisis.
• (Inclusion Cornwall 2006)
• In order to break the cycle of poverty we need to
  work in partnership to address the needs of the
  family as a whole.

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Tackling Child Poverty
Tackling child poverty
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A Partnership Approach
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REAL CHOICES Tackling Child Poverty in Cornwall

• HM Treasury Invest to Save Inclusive
  Communities Budget.
• Resources to develop partnerships between local
  authorities and the third sector to improve
  public services.
• One of 24 successful bids nationwide
• Shifting efforts from treatment to prevention.
• Savings made on treatment will be ploughed back
  into innovative poverty prevention schemes.

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REAL CHOICES Tackling Child Poverty in Cornwall

• So what are WE going to deliver?
• How can YOU help?

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Virtual Wards
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• Co-ordination join up delivery of LAA
  outcomes to the virtual wards at point of
  delivery.
• Deliver personalised and integrated whole
  family support.
• Improve the full range of local services

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• Deliver family getaway events and other new
  experiences for children and young people to
  raise family aspirations
• Promote structured volunteering to target
  families as a means of building skills, self
  confidence, improve job prospects and helping
  families to help themselves

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• Establish a flexible budget capable of making
  one-off payments that can improve life chances
  for children and young people living in poverty.
• Work with voluntary and community sector partners
  to improve take-up of existing services from
  hard to reach families.

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• Invest in volunteering around debt management,
  welfare rights and benefit take-up.
• Deliver, quality, appropriate and integrated
  support that results in 60 families moving off
  benefit dependency.

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• Poverty a life of unequal choices
• WE all need to work together to break the cycle.
• James Hardy
• jhardy_at_cornwall.gov.uk
• 01872 355126